Game of Thrones Up For PGA and ADG Awards in 2017!

Game of Thrones may add two more awards to its overladen trophy shelf in the next month, courtesy of two separate announcements made today.

The Art Directors Guild have made their nominations for the 21st Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards, and GoT, represented by production designer Deborah Riley, made the short list!

Game of Thrones will compete for the ADG award recognizing excellence for a One-Hour Period or Fantasy Single-Camera Series. The episodes representing the show’s work for season 6 are episode 6, “Blood of My Blood,” episode 7 “The Broken Man,” and episode 8 “No One.”

The other shows in competition this year include Stranger Things, The Crown, The Man in the High Castle, and Westworld. Game of Thrones and Riley won this award previously in 2016 for their work on season 5.

The winners will be announced in a ceremony on February 11th at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in California.

The Producers Guild of America also announced the nominations for their annual awards today. Game of Thrones and its producers will be up against a group of strong competitors, including fellow HBO show Westworld.

The nominees for The Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television, Drama are:

The Producers Guild Award winners will be announced on January 28th in Los Angeles. Game of Thrones and its stellar crew of producers won this award last year so we’ll keep our fingers crossed for a repeat win!

Game of Thrones will also be competing at this weekend’s Golden Globes! The show is nominated in two categories: Best Drama Series, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Television Series for Lena Headey. Tune into NBC this Sunday night at 8PM ET to support GoT!

Really glad the show’s getting recognition for its excellent art production. It truly deserves it. Although I’m surprised Outlander isn’t nominated for that since this season had excellent sets and locations.

Great work. I wish they could lure back Gemma Jackson, though. Production design in the first three seasons was more grounded, gritty, ‘real’, as opposed to the the more fantasy-like approach that Riley has. Also, her sets are too dark, she should give a little more thought to lighting.

Hi Northop, as someone who works on the show with Deb I have to strongly disagree!
If anything Gemma’s work is generally more fantasy and Deb always pushes for more realistic grounded styles. I’ve also worked with Gemma and although I think she has a great eye I think her style is much more fantasy orientated. Also it’s unfair to suggest the lighting is an oversight by Deb as that is handled by the DOP and shooting crew, if they light her set badly it’s their mistake really and a waste of a good set. Anyway I generally think the lighting is done very well myself, but that’s just my opinion 😉

Well, interesting, if you compare the sets from S3 and S4, the former appears to be more gritty and grounded, as if it was taken from real life, while Riley’s sets tend to be a bit more ‘fake’, you can almost see the soundstages they were built on. Especially Dany’s pyramid in Meereen. Also, the DPs and directors are usually brought in quite late in production, and they have no affect on the production design. They work with what they are given. Prod designers have to think about if enough light sources are provided, such as windows, doors, lamps, etc. A good prod designer will take into account how sets can be lit, and how can the dp get enough light to light it. A set without any visible windows will need lamps and candles (interiors only, of course). In the pre-electricity world, any set withouth ‘holes’ will prove to be challanging in terms of lighting.

Northop, I don’t know where you get your information. But as I’ve worked on the last few seasons I can tell you that I’ve seen the DOP’s are heavily involved from a very early stage! Bare in mind a production designer is working for producers the directors and David and Dan and all of them are making certain demands of how the set should look and how it should be lit. I see the point you’re trying to make but perhaps you’re ill informed. If you don’t like the lighting that’s your point of view which you’re absolutely entitled to, and maybe others will agree with you. Perhaps certain sets are too dark. In the case of Dany’s pyramid I thought it looked awesome!!! Everyone has their point of view I guess….

I guess everything depends on your own personal opinions. When I say involved from the start, I mean that directors and dps themselves go for location scouting, and are participate in the whole pre-production process. On tv shows, directors are treated much like writers on feature films: expendable, replaceable people. They are brought on board as late as possible, because it’s easier for everyone if the showrunners take care of overseeing the whole season, and the directors just do the job of calling the shots. Sure, they visit the sets, sometimes they change things, have their own needs, but in general, not much is decided by them.

Btw, I’m not making this whole thing up, I worked on S5, and chatted with Gemma about the whole show, so I wouldn’t call myself ill-informed.

haha! Ok, first of all just to clear the air. Apologies if I offended a bit, not my intention, just we both dont know who we each are and our experience 🙂

Secondly I agree with what you say about directors, they are essentially treated as tools by the producers etc to get the episodes made, though some Directors like Miguel come into their own and prove to be great Directors in their own right.
It often does come down to the directors and how controlling they are as with the DOP’s – how much they want to alter things etc. I’ve seen some directors micro manage how they want certain things on the set design to be and others who have barely anything to do with the art dept. Also I have noticed how over the seasons the producers have become more demanding. In the early seasons for Gemma the show wasn’t well known and no one knew it would be a success – no one knew how much it would explode on a global scale, so there was less pressure on producers and therefore less pressure on the production designer, Gemma was given much more free reign to do what she wanted (to an extent as she was of course still working for producers, D&D etc). As the seasons have gone on and GoT has become a bigger and bigger success Deb is under a lot more pressure from all the people above her, all of them making their own demands. Season 7 has been an even tighter schedule than ever before so less time to make sets! I’d like to see how any other person, Gemma included would deal with those pressures in the relative short time that a whole season gets made (yes its less episodes, but that doesn’t effect how many new sets they needed!!!!), it’s an incredible achievement!!! 🙂
Sure every set wont be perfect, some people wont like certain things and not all tastes are satisfied. But I think as tv shows go, it’s a damn good looking show with damn fine sets 😉

Also I still have to disagree with you a bit about when directors and DOP’s actually get involved, sure the producers try and stave them off for a bit in early pre production but the Prod designer is in contact with them from quite early on before they even fly over to Belfast for the first time. And I know this as I’ve witnessed it!

What a fascinating conversation. My knowledge is no deeper than the average film buff’s, but technical accomplishments have always fascinated me. Best I can tell, the show’s art design has been coherent and consistent despite the baton being passed. Both art designers also had a fabulous feel for period detail. With each new book, Martin had to imagine expanded worlds, locales, architecture, peoples, costumes, etc, as the show has also done. This has given Deborah Riley even greater scope for imagination and creativity, and IMO she absolutely rose to the occasion. I’ve particularly liked Braavos and the House of Black and White and that delightful theatre sequence. Braavos seemed more fully realised and three-dimensional than any other Essosi location, even Meereen. The technical insights from Riley, Michelle Clapton, and the cinematographer with the unspellable name made the commentary on S5E3 one of my favourites. It can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-IjnGuqjTU